A Second Chance
by Divamercury
Summary: AU. A peek inside Sara's head after something terrible happens. Please review!


I won't believe it. I just can't believe it.

It seems so unreal. So wrong. 

Damn it, it is wrong. I never thought I'd be standing here when he wasn't. Every day above ground is a special day, and he saw his last because of me.

It's a typical, cold winter night in NYC. I'm wrapped up in my leather jacket and pants, both pieces of apparel providing too little protection from the bitter chill that's setting in, but I'm numb, hollow, beyond feeling and emotion, so it doesn't bother me in the least. I've become a shell of myself. Here I am, standing here in the cemetery, blanketed with fresh snow, staring at his tombstone through the short-lived puffs of vapor made by my breathing in the frigid night. The reality of it all still hasn't sunk in. 

I've been here so many times before. So many people I love have died in the past year, and now I have to add another to the ever-lengthening list. It's beginning to get oldno, strike that. It's been old for a long time, and it's only going to get worse. 

I want to cry. The tears are there, but they can't break through the sheath of ice around me, the wall that up until recently was about to fall, thanks to him. But now that he's gone, it's slowly reformingand it probably won't ever melt again. It's too dangerous to destroy it, just for this very reason. I created it to protect myself from getting hurt, and look where destroying it got me.

What I really want is to completely break down, reveal my misery to the world and not worry about what anyone else thinks. It would be the first time. I've never completely let go before. I want to scream or do something, but it's impossible. There's nothing left in me now that will allow it. Emotion? What is that? 

Everything I've worked for, everything I thought I knew has just crumbled and ended up as rubble at my feet, shards of memories stabbing my skin. I've been ripped apart from the inside out and I don't know if I will be able to move on.

Well, on second thought, somehow I guess I will. I have before, several times. He once told me I was the strongest person he knew, and I laughed at that because he was clearly stronger, both physically and emotionally, because of what he has—had—to bear every day. Another reason why he should be here, standing beside me, looking at someone else's grave, instead of resting in his own. 

I glance up to the heavens, black as ebony at this time of night and studded with brilliant stars. I know he's up there, watching over me just like he did when he was alive, and that will never change. He'll always be my knight, watching out for me in some way even though he isn't of this realm any longer. I know he's in heaven even though he's done some terrible things in his life. But who among us haven't? Who has always done the right thing no matter what? No one is perfect. He never really had a choice when it came to his actions thanks to Irons, but he has a good soul, and I know that will pull him through.

I've barely been able to function ever since it happened. Nothing is real anymore, not that it has been ever since I got the Witchblade; it has been kind enough to make me—and everything around me—crazier than normal. It misses him, I know. And it misses me. The old me. The me that ran in headfirst, guns blazing, bullets-be-damned

Now I don't know if I can ever look at a gun the same way again. I never would have thought that one single bullet, one tiny piece of metal, would be the thing that would take him, the man I always saw as invincible, away from this worldor more importantly, away from me. 

I watch a star shoot across the sky. A little late, I think. Stars are supposed to fall when someone dies, not a month afterward. Oh, well. Mother Nature's always been the champion of bad timing from what I could tell; why shouldn't she continue her streak?

I always knew that there was something between the two of us, a bond of some kind. I know it had something to do with the Witchblade, but it went deeper than that. I was just starting to think that I could make this thought known, and I was actually trying to track him down to talk to him when I got the call. 

My cell phone was what informed me of the earth-shattering news. I had been off that day and someone from the station called me, telling me that there had been a crime that I should check out. I complained, but it was clear that the case was very personal to me. Jake and I found him in an alley not far from my apartment. He had been shot in the back, his cell phone in his gloved hand, one digit left to dial on the phone number that turned out to be mine. He had died before he could call me. No suspects.

That was when the feeling drained out of me, and it still hasn't returned. I've been numb for a month. Has it only been that long? It seems like years have gone by. 

I went to his funeral. I wore a dress, the only one I own, which in itself should show how much this meant to me. The dress was black, of course. He would have liked that, considering his obsession with the color. Kenneth Irons spoke, going on and on, talking up a storm on some meaningless bullshit that I knew was completely false about how much he had cared for him. If he'd cared, he wouldn't have taken advantage of his views about honor and would have kept him far away from me. It's too dangerous for anyone to be around me.

I snap out of my memories and back to the present. His tombstone is beautiful, if something like that can have beauty. A slab of pure white marble with an intricately carved black dragon over his name, and then the dates of his birth and death. He would have loved it for its symbolism and simple elegance. 

The tears that had threatened to fall before have finally broken through. They stream down my cheeks as I lean over to touch the marble, and they fall, splashing on the top of the stone. I run my fingers over the dragon, tracing its curves and ridges, wishing that I had had one more day with him, or even a minute, so I could have told him how I felt. I brush my lips against the smooth rock, regretting all the awful things I had ever said to him and longing for my lips to be touching his and not cold marble. 

I absently wipe my fallen tears away with the back of my hand and continue to stare at the grave, thinking that somehow none of this will be real and when I wake up everything will be back to normal. I heave a sigh as I turn from the grave, hugging myself, and I almost walk away. In mid-stride I stop and turn back to the stone. I only wish that I could have told him once how I felt about him, that I could have realized what he meant to me before I lost him. I just wish I could have a second chance to make things right. But these are wishes of sheer fantasy. Tears return to my eyes as I realize my dreams will never come to be, and I drop to my knees in the snow, mourning the life we'll never have. I stay like that until sleep overtakes me and I curl up into a ball over his grave, not even waking when the morning light floods the city.

Hope you liked it! It just didn't seem appropriate to put my name at the top of this; I wanted it to come straight from Sara's heart. Please review!

~DM


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